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CrossFit

By: Bodyzone
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An 8 letter word which we're dead sure that, by now, you must have heard about 8 million times in and around your gym, college, office and even on the internet. If not, then it's the new hot thing people (in India) all over are talking & trying about in their fitness regimes. And if you're a curious soul who just came out from under a rock, this the perfect place to know as to what CROSSFIT is.

Well, to begin with, Crossfit is nothing new. It is an evolved form of the age-old functional training we all known and done many times. And like all famous fitness regime, Crossfit too stands as an acronym of its true meaning.

Crossfita.k.a Constantly Varied - High Intensity - Functional Training is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.

To put it bluntly, CrossFit is a training program that builds strength and conditioning through extremely varied and challenging workouts usually involving functional (Natural) movements that you employ through your daily lives.

Rather than focusing on specific movements and muscle groups (Like your Monday chest days), Crossfit stresses on the holistic fitness of your body and mind.

It's best for-

Beginners: People who wanna get into lifting heavy weights can perfect their basic movements through this regime.

Fanatics: People who wish to enhance their overall fitness and strength rather than packing on more muscles.

How's a typical Crossfit session like?

In one word, exhilarating!
Well, there too is a process to it before you get to experience the extreme end of this workout.

The class begins dynamic warm-up session which lasts about 5-10 minutes. This part will encourage you to warm yourself up through natural movements such as light jogging, jumping, squatting, lunging, push & pulls ups. Nothing fancy, just enough to get engines running.

The second part is the meat of the session, where you'll be introduced to the WOD a.k.a Workout of the Day. It's a 'dhobi-list' of exercises which you will have to complete within a given time limit (Usually 12-20 minutes). This is the exhilarating part we were talking about as this where you will be encouraged to go hard and non-stop until you complete your WOD list.

The last part is the cool down and stretching session where you will be stretching yourself to avoid any form of stiffness you might pick up from your WOD.

So now that we know the core of Crossfit, let us take you through some pros and cons of this raging fitness regime.

PROS

•Holistic Fitness: Conditions your entire body rather than working on muscles in silos.

* Levelling up: Crossfit improves your fitness levels progressively without you even getting to know about it. So just workout and watch yourself get stronger, faster and fitter automatically.

* Mind and body conditioning: Crossfit involves your mind to work in tandem with your body in order to accomplish the high-intensity movements. And the results of that can be seen and felt not just physically, but psychologically as well.

CONS

* Not great for specialisation – You kind of get good at a lot of things, but not great at any one particular thing. If you want to be a great powerlifter or athlete, you'd be better suited finding a sport-specific coach.

* Inertia: Crossfit comes with a lot of initial setbacks. By that, we mean that beginners have to face a tough time during their initial days into this sort of regime. If one is not careful with their warms -ups, hydration, muscle conditioning - the setbacks related to injuries (Even people puking) can really interrupt your progress.